Pharmacists must have the courage to make clinical decisions
If pharmacists are to market themselves as the health professionals on
the high street they need the courage to make clinical decisions, according
to MP and pharmacist Sandra Gidley.
Speaking at the annual dinner of the Association of Independent Multiple
Pharmacies, Mrs Gidley described the recent experience of Nick Robinson,
the BBC’s political correspondent, who had been wheezing during
the recent Conservative Party conference, found his inhaler did not work
but was refused an emergency supply at a local pharmacy. She said pharmacists
she had asked about emergency supply often believed there was a possibility
that they would be disciplined if they did.
However, she added, evidence from past cases did not support these fears. “People
have actually been in front of the Statutory Committee for not supplying
when they should have done, but that knowledge hasn’t transmitted
itself to the profession,” she said. “If we are to market
ourselves as the health professionals on the high street with easy access,
we have got to think about having the courage to make those professional
decisions.”
Mrs Gidley added that pharmacists need to do more to communicate with
the public and other health professionals about the work they do. “Is
the pharmacist a shopkeeper? Or is the pharmacist a health professional?
If we want to be taken seriously as health professionals we have to think
seriously about the image that some of the pharmacies on the high street
actually project.”
Pharmacy Show
Sandra Gidley also spoke at the
Pharmacy Show in Birmingham earlier this week, where she reiterated
her concern about how people perceived the profession. She also
said how important it was for pharmacy to engage with Lord
Darzi’s
review of primary care since she did not believe Lord Darzi acknowledged
that pharmacists were part of the primary care team as there were
no pharmacists on his advisory board.
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